Gold Magazine December 2013 - January 2014, Issue 33 | Página 80

investing in champagne

Fame and Fortune
W

hilst the pervading hues
and flavour nuances
of Champagne are
deeply appreciated
and held dear, sometimes the importance
of quality may just be
usurped by the monumental opportunity to
own a piece of history, or indeed posses
decadence incarnate.
The following Champagne sales display
the thrall of fortune
and fame:

1. Having rested
tumultuously on the
seabed of Finland’s
autonomous Aaland
archipelago for nearly
200 years, a bottle
of Veuve Clicquot
Champagne was discovered in July 2010.
Assumed to be booty
from a shipwreck dat-

ing to between 1825
and 1830, the bottle
sold for an incredible
€30,000. A bottle of
Champagne from the
now defunct house,
Juglar, was salvaged
alongside the Veuve
Clicquot, and managed to secure a likewise impressive selling price of €24,000.
A single buyer from
Asia purchased both
bottles.

2. 1916: The
Jönköping, a Swedish
freighter, is traversing
the Gulf of Finland,
having been specially
commissioned to
deliver wines to Tsar
Nicholas II of Russia.
With the world in the
throes of the First
World War, a German
submarine struck the
freighter, sending it

to the seabed along
with the 2,000 bottles
of wine. Fast forward
to 1998: Almost unbelievably, all 2,000
bottles are recovered
and distributed worldwide for auction. In a
poignant twist of fate,
the most expensive
bottle to be sold was
actually done so from
its original intended
destination of Russia.
An auction held at The
Ritz-Carlton, Moscow,
witnessed a bottle
of vintage Heidsieck
1907 sell for an astounding $275,000.

3. This year,
Champagne brand,
Goût de Diamants released a very special
bottle of Champagne.
Whilst the house
speaks highly of
the flavour profile

encapsulated within
the bottle, depicting
it as floral, refreshing,
crescendoing with
a creamy texture,
and cadencing with
a light and elegant
finish, it is perhaps
not the quality alone
that has buyers parting with $1.2 million
dollars to possess
it. In keeping with
the house name that
translates to ‘taste of
diamonds’, Goût de
Diamants created a
superlatively luxurious
bottle, accented with
an 18-carat white gold
signature Superman
badge logo, centred
upon which is a flawless white diamond
measuring 19 carats.
An embodiment of
prestige and fame, it
is no wonder it costs
a fortune.

2

1

3
are utilised in the production of ‘vintage’
Champagne. In such cases, the Champagnes
are created almost exclusively (at least 80%)
from this single harvest. Thereafter, the bottles are dated (indicating the year of harvest)
and matured for a minimum of three years

prior to release. Whilst families of vintages
may be identified – such as 1993, 1990,
and 1976 – each vintage Champagne has a
unique taste, much like vintage still wines or
single cask whiskies. Non-vintage, in contrast, is brought to fruition diachronically,

80 Gold the international investment, finance & professional services magazine of cyprus

by blending a mixture of harvests in correct
proportions in order to replicate a single,
uniform flavour profile every year.
Indeed, in the world of collecting and
investing, it is vintage examples that endure, keeping – if not increasing – their
value. And with attractive buy-in prices,
Champagne may just serve as some muchneeded diversity within a collector’s investment portfolio.
“There are a group of investors who feel
that there is only one way that Champagne
prices are headed, and that is up,” notes
Geoffrey Troy of New York Wine
Warehouse, the North American auction
partner for wines at Christie’s. Troy elaborates: “We are beginning to see a number
of serious wine collectors who are buying
serious amounts of Champagne as an investment.”
Official figures concur. London-based fine
wine exchange, Liv-ex, known for operating
the established and respected Fine Wine 100
Index, also runs the Champagne 25 Index,
which tracks the prices of the world’s top
vintage Champagnes. Tracking a five-year
period to July of this year, Liv-ex published
figures suggesting that the Champagne 25
Index has risen by 32%, in contrast with
the Fine Wine 100 Index, which rose by
just 3%. Indeed, in the nine-month period
concluding the third quarter of this year,
the Champagne 25 Index rose by 9.7%,
with big strides taken in particular by Louis
Roederer’s Cristal 1996, increasing by 9.2%,
Taittinger Comte Champagne 2002, 8.9%,
and Krug 1996, 7.4%.
For those not wishing, at present, to
commit to the rich heights of, for examp K